To promote a product or a service a business usually has to advertise, to increase sales and the popularity of a product the business need also do advertising, so, various advertisements have become ubiquitous. On the other hand, in the today's world flooded with the advertisements, general consumers seam to be experiencing “advertising blindness”, and they pay attention to the mediocre advertisements less and less. The advertising effectiveness appears uncertain. In this context, running a prize promotion like a sweepstake or a contest finds favor with a number of businesses because the prize promotion can more effectively attract public attention to them and their products. A research report said that 49% of the consumers logged onto the Internet at least once per month to enter the sweepstake; 24% of the consumers made their first online purchase based on the attractive sweepstake; and 76% of commercial sites named the sweepstake or the contest as their preferred method of the promotion. These facts indicate that the prize promotion has become a significant method and a popular way to promote a brand, to increase sales and to drive traffic. Particularly at present, the boom of electronic commerce sets a broader stage for the prize promotion.
As stated above, there are two main types of prize promotion, i.e. the sweepstake and the contest. This classification is based on the type of the prize promotional campaign. Regardless of which type, however, it is important to comply with the laws and regulations as running the prize promotion. According to federal, state, and local laws the sweepstakes or the contest becomes a “lottery”, and thus, illegal, if all of the following three elements are present:                Prize—A prize is always present in such promotions.        Consideration—Consideration generally means that an entrant has to make a purchase or a payment or in some states do something substantial.        Chance—A chance means that a winner is selected at random.        
Since the prize is always present in such promotions, one of the other two elements must be eliminated to avoid violating the laws. The difference between the sweepstake and the contest is just which element is eliminated. For the sweepstake, because a winner is selected by drawing of chance, the consideration must be eliminated, and thus the organizer of the sweepstake can't require a player to pay, purchase or do anything substantial for playing the game, while for the contest, a winner is selected on the basis of player's skill rather than the chance, so the chance has be eliminated, and thus it is allowed to require a payment or a purchase to enter the contest in most states. A business may choose a suitable type of prize promotion according to its need. The sweepstake and the contest are popular with the businesses and the consumers. However, at present there are some problems hindering the more widespread and more effective utilization of the prize promotion.
Problem 1, UNFAIRNESS: The sweepstake and the contest have large appeal. That is because they provide an opportunity to win the attractive prize. However, at present only those large businesses are able to run the sweepstake or the contest, but most of small businesses haven't the wherewithal to solely bear the high cost of the prize promotion. Supposing the annual sales of a restaurant can reach 1 million based on its operating condition, and the maximum profit is 100 thousand, how much money could the restaurant spend on the promotion? McDonald can offer a million as the prize for promoting its hamburger, but a local individual burger shop near a McDonald store can't bear such a high cost; that is to say, it can't do this only by itself because of lack of its wherewithal. The small business can afford some small gifts at most, but the small gifts can't compare with the large prize in attracting the consumers. Obviously, the small business is in an unfair and unfavorable position in running the promotion and market competition.
Problem 2, HARD CONTEST: As mentioned above, if a business desires its customers to make purchase while it runs a prize promotional campaign, it can only run the contest rather than the sweepstake to comply with the laws. To run a genuine contest the test question must really be able to test the player's skill, but isn't as simple as 1+2=? For a contest, it is the requirement that only a few players can win. If a number of players can pass the test, and finally to select the winners by the chance, the campaign isn't the genuine contest, but is the sweepstake. This is illegal. So, to run the genuine contest the business must build a professional test question bank and an executive system. This is very difficult for the small businesses, even for a big company because they lack necessary professional and technical resources. Maybe someone suggests employing a professional team. This is a good idea, but to employ the professional team to build the professional question bank and its corresponding executive system the business will have to spend lots of money. This indicates running the contest is more difficult and more complex than running the sweepstake. The business clearly knows that running the contest can increase even more sales, but they have to select the sweepstake. This is just the reason why the utilization of the contest is less than the utilization of the sweepstake in the prize promotional campaign. Some professional exams are well known, such as TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam, as well as other intelligence exams. Unfortunately, no business can use anyone of them for the promotional contest. The reasons are that the systems of these exams and tests don't relate to running the prize promotion structurally. The professional exam is a close system and focuses on a professional field. Nobody can rent or share the exam and test systems. For example, if a business wants to hire accountants, the business can't rent the CPA exam system to test its candidates because the system structure of the professional exam isn't open to the businesses.
Problem 3, TOO HIGH COST: To run the prize promotion the business need do a lot of works: issuing tickets for the promotion, collecting the tickets, drawing winning numbers, selecting winners, particularly for the contest also including building the professional test question bank and marking an answer and so on. This must put a lot of labor and materials into the promotion, and the question bank doesn't often be used, this results in a higher operational cost and the waste of the resources. As mentioned above, if the business employs really the professional team it will have to spend lots of money. Without doubt, it is impossible to do so for overwhelming majority of the businesses particularly for the small businesses.
Problem 4, DECEIT: Certain deceitful matters occurred occasionally in the prize promotion. These deceitful matters mainly involve the following three aspects: First, some businesses ran a false contest deliberately or accidentally, for example, a false testing question may be so simple that everybody can answer, say, 1+2=?, that is to say, the question isn't a question at all. Finally a winner is still selected by drawing of chance or according to the business's discretion, and their purpose is just to intend to increase their sales by running such a nominal contest. The nominal contest complies with the laws in form, but it is still the sweepstake in fact. Obviously, this deceit is illegal. Second, some dishonest businesses didn't make good on their promises for the prize after the prize promotions ended. The promised prize finally becomes irredeemable. Third, some dishonest businesses set winning numbers in advance and divulge the numbers to their friends, even didn't set the winning numbers at all so that nobody would win the prize forever. Similarly, they can divulge their test questions and correct answers to their own preferred person.
Problem 5, DIFFICULTY OF UNION: Maybe a business can unite with other acquainted businesses by the personal relationship to share the prize promotion, but in this way the number of united businesses is always limited. In fact the more the number of businesses is, the less the cost born by each member is. Besides, the union is quite localized, but most of the businesses don't like to see their neighbors running a similar prize promotion at the same time in the same area because that will poach their customers and thus reduce the effect of their promotion. If there is a public platform that enables those unacquainted businesses to easily come together, it will overcome the difficulty. Though some websites collect the various prize promotions on their own websites, they only provide information about the prize promotions and links leading to the prize promotions. The prize promotions don't really run on the collectors' websites. The collectors don't manage the promotions, in fact, are unrelated to the promotions at all. The promotions are exclusive separately to one business, and don't recruit any new member.
Problem 6, SCATTER: Up to now the prize promotions are separately operated by some businesses and run in their respective sites in isolation from each other. Under this condition, it isn't easy to attract the public attention because the public doesn't know where the business and its promotion are. Usually the business has to do additional advertising to announce its promotion. This must increase the cost and reduce the effect of the promotion. Why do the consumers like to go to the trade show or the shopping mall? That is because there are a number of selectable shops concentrated there. Why do the businesses like to go to the trade show? That is because there is very heavy traffic there. So, for the prize promotion, either the business or the consumer expects such a place to enable the businesses and the consumers to converge.
Well then, is there any PRIOR ART that can solve the above problems? No good solution is found. Herein we can only cite two farfetched examples: the Groupon and the Kickstarter. The Groupon provides a platform for buyers to buy something in the form of a group for a wholesale discount. The Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. On the Kickstarter anyone is eligible to launch a project. If someone likes the project, the one may pledge money to the project to make it happen. The Kickstarter creates a way for creators and audiences to work together to make a thing. When many backers jointly fund one project, it becomes to pool more small funds for a great task. Both provide a platform that enables the buyers and the backers to easily come together for a certain purpose, that is to say, they solve one of the above difficult problems, but they both can't solve the other problems. In fact they don't relate to the prize promotion because they lack the infrastructure of running the contest and the sweepstake.
TECHNOLOGICAL BACKGROUND: Generally, the majority of the small businesses don't know each other, and their business classifications are various, and they locate likely in different cities and areas. It is quite difficult to let lots of small unrelated businesses come together before the computer and the Internet arose, but with progress of the Internet technology and the client-server network architecture, it has become possible and very easy. The Internet comprises a vast number of computers including mobile devices and various computer networks interconnected by wire or wireless communication links. The interconnected machines exchange information and data using various services, such as the World Wide Web (WWW), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), e-mail, Instant Communication, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and so on. The World Wide Web service allows a server system to send graphical webpages of information to a remote client system, and the client system can then display the webpages. Each resource of WWW, such as a computer or a webpage, is uniquely identifiable by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). To view a specific webpage a client has to specify the URL for that webpage in a request, e.g. a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request. The request is forwarded to the web server system supporting that webpage by a browser. When that server system receives the request, it should send that webpage to the client system, and after receiving the webpage the client system typically displays that webpage by the browser. The client-server network architecture provides the technological base of solving the above difficult problems hindering the development of the prize promotion.